A comparative study of absorption in vertically and laterally oriented InP core-shell nanowire photovoltaic devices

Ali Nowzari, Magnus Heurlin, Vishal Jain, Kristian Storm, Ali Hosseinnia, Nicklas Anttu, Magnus T. Borgström, Håkan Pettersson, Lars Samuelson*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

55 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We have compared the absorption in InP core-shell nanowire p-i-n junctions in lateral and vertical orientation. Arrays of vertical core-shell nanowires with 400 nm pitch and 280 nm diameter, as well as corresponding lateral single core-shell nanowires, were configured as photovoltaic devices. The photovoltaic characteristics of the samples, measured under 1 sun illumination, showed a higher absorption in lateral single nanowires compared to that in individual vertical nanowires, arranged in arrays with 400 nm pitch. Electromagnetic modeling of the structures confirmed the experimental observations and showed that the absorption in a vertical nanowire in an array depends strongly on the array pitch. The modeling demonstrated that, depending on the array pitch, absorption in a vertical nanowire can be lower or higher than that in a lateral nanowire with equal absorption predicted at a pitch of 510 nm for our nanowire geometry. The technology described in this Letter facilitates quantitative comparison of absorption in laterally and vertically oriented core-shell nanowire p-i-n junctions and can aid in the design, optimization, and performance evaluation of nanowire-based core-shell photovoltaic devices.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1809-1814
Number of pages6
JournalNano Letters
Volume15
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Mar 2015
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • absorption
  • core-shell
  • InP
  • Nanowire
  • photovoltaics
  • radial
  • solar cell

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